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Abstract
A recent study revealed limitations to the reproduction potential of Yellowstone cutthroat trout Oncorhynchus clarkii bouvieri (YCT) in Yellowstone Lake, Wyoming, resulting from suboptimal conditions for somatic growth. The present study evaluated the lake as suitable thermal habitat for YCT and lake trout Salvelinus namaycush, a highly piscivorous, nonnative species, a reproducing population of which was discovered there in 1994. Because the fundamental thermal niche of lake trout delimits a zone of the lake's annual temperature profile that surrounds the corresponding, separate zone for YCT, the annual growing season and volume of suitable Yellowstone Lake habitat will invariably be larger for lake trout than YCT across the range of cool-to-warm climate years. Ongoing management actions to control lake trout emphasize intensive gill netting, while temporal changes in lake trout catch rates and population structure provide metrics of program success. However, the limits to YCT reproduction potential attributed to the short growing season make the YCT population especially susceptible to lake trout predation, perhaps even from a measurably reduced predator population. Identification of such effects requires that dynamic, age-structured models of the YCT population that incorporate all important population drivers be formulated and used in data analyses and control program assessment.
Received February 5, 2012; accepted May 8, 2012
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Pat Bigelow, National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park, for providing the data for 1996, 1997, and 1999; Jim Mogen, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bozeman, Montana, for his help in preparing the figure; Beth Kaeding for her editorial assistance; Thomas E. McMahon, Ecology Department, Montana State University, for his constructive comments on a preceding version of this report; and an anonymous reviewer for his useful comments on the manuscript submitted for publication.